by Mitch Kirsner
​
I was a 14-year-old boy in the summer of 1966 when Dark Shadows made its debut on ABC. Even before the show debuted there was hype for it in the air, a Gothic-styled afternoon TV show with elements of the supernatural all coming at a time when horror was in vogue with Hammer horror films and the drive-in theaters monster marathons all playing full tilt. I was on board from the first of the series, loving the quirky and spooky casting, and fixating on Vicki who seemed so stable and sincere amidst the intrigue and ghosts who surrounded her.
At 14 for me, it was a time of junior high, always a stressful school, I later renamed it Stephen King Jr. High for the mock horror of having to attend it, later when the school was bulldozed I would tell people they salted the earth where it had stood, did I mention I hated Jr. High? I was at the tail end of paper delivery at the time having either helped on routes or having my own since the time I was 11 years old.
And so it was I grew older with Dark Shadows. I was already in to the genre, like many teens at the time, and after a rough day at school I could always count on my escape to Collinwood. In the beginning my teen angst identified with David who kept trying to kill his father, but when the ghosts, vampires, witches and time travel kicked into gear I was really swept away by it all.
While many of us were entranced by the supernatural elements, there was a pervasive sense of camp that went along not only with Dark Shadows but other popular shows at the time like Star Trek and Batman. Overacting was the rule of the day and Dark Shadows would always rise to the task whether it was a falling prop or a theatrical gasp as the resident doctor would watch someone fall over on the other side of the room and, with no inspection whatsoever, pronounce them dead.
Two years into the show, our local affiliate decided to preempt Dark Shadows locally in order to run cheaper programming that would net the station more revenue. I called and wrote to the station and received a reply from the head of the station, but there was nothing I could do that would keep the show on the local network.
Never one to take no for an answer, I started a letter- writing campaign and had letters published in the local paper. We then had a gathering of local fans in the station's parking lot, complete with black armbands and a coffin. We had to, Barnabas was on a mission to the past and VCRs for home use had not been invented. There were no reruns. I remember one Friday, the cliffhanger at the end had Barnabas being staked. I have no idea what I was going to say, but I spent an hour on the phone with NYC information and was distraught to learn there was no listed phone number for Dan Curtis Studio.
We kept the show on the air for another year. I graduated from my paper route to a part-time job which meant I missed at least two episodes a week of the show. Then another part-time job where I missed three. The Leviathan episodes were FINALLY being resolved. Again the president of the local station decided to stop running the show, this time the solution was the station would record the episodes and show them after the late movie on Friday nights. All 2 1/2 hours complete with commercials. Airing at near 2 am I was generally asleep by the second episode.
So it was I trailed off on the show. I graduated high school and I was on a tin can in the Med when someone told me that Dark Shadows had been canceled. Just a few weeks earlier we had seen House of Dark Shadows when they played the film one night on the mess decks. It was like losing an old friend. In the following years, I would catch a few episodes here and there on other local affiliates and later episodes on the SyFi channel and, of course, VHS and later DVDs. Of course I watched and loved the '91 remake, but after that any interest on my part was pretty much at the back of my mind.
I really had no idea there were conventions or really wasn't paying attention and it wasn't until around 2009 I even became aware that Jonathan Frid was still alive. When I saw that he would be in attendance at the 2010 Burbank convention, I figured if he could be there at 80 how could I do any less? He was the first person I recognized when I checked in at the hotel and I introduced myself and thanked him for helping to make my teen years bearable. Meeting the rest of the cast was all icing on the cake.
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